Editorial: Shame on Carolina Housing

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Resident Advisors, commonly known as RAs, play an instrumental role in a student’s experience at UNC. All first-years must live on campus, and RAs facilitate much of a first-year’s adjustment to college life. Beyond the role they play for students, their staffing of the housing system undoubtedly saves the University money and helps ensure student housing is affordable for students. For their commitment to UNC, they should be treated with respect.

Seven RAs were fired for violating the University's alcohol policy, as reported in last Wednesday's newspaper. They were caught in a limbo for weeks, unsure if they could keep their jobs. Their trial was lacking transparency and fairness and is a disgraceful shame.

The firing of these students should be reviewed by staff at UNC and should initiate the creation of a formal review process for instances in which RAs are accused of violating their contract as employees. A job that entails compensation, housing and partial control of a person’s life should have a clear, fair and transparent processes for termination. After the publishing of the article Wednesday that summarized the situation, it seems clear that Carolina Housing mistreated these students throughout the process of determining what happened, mishandled the opportunity for appeal by the students and established a unforgiving stance on mistakes that is unfair given the role of an RA at UNC.

Students were told to be truthful throughout the discovery process of determining the facts of the situation, yet this honesty was used to punish those who told the truth, while staff at Carolina Housing lied about matters like who would become aware of the information and who would be making decisions. Not only does this deter students from telling the truth in the future, but it is an unfair and unnecessary double standard. Students were expected to hang themselves out to dry while staff skirted the truth to preserve their own interests — whatever those may have been.

Carolina Housing also encouraged RAs to be, at least partially, dishonest to their residents by having RAs tell residents that they were “taking a hiatus,” another confusing promotion of misinformation that negatively impacted RAs and their residents. It is baffling and nonsensical that these RAs were fired for safety reasons, yet strung along in their review process long enough so that the housing staff could have these same RAs as essential labor on Halloween, a night plagued with legitimate safety concerns for students.

During the “trial” in which the fate of RAs was decided, there was no accountability for record keeping of the situation. The RAs felt like information was being included and excluded without transparency. Additionally, appeals to the situation were internally handled by Carolina Housing and held behind closed doors. This trial for RAs upholds a system that seems intentionally secretive and opaque so that students are unable to accurately and fairly advocate for themselves. According to comments on the DTH article from Wednesday, Carolina Housing was unable (or unwilling) to distinguish between varying levels of involvement and responsibility of each RA involved to create fairer consequences. A new review policy should be able, at the least, to recognize shades of gray in complicated situations and make an effort to be fairer to all involved.

Carolina Housing took an unforgiving stance on the situation that resulted in the termination of seven RAs. The decision made by staff affected students’ income and housing, and ultimately jeopardized their ability to attend UNC. The decision may have lifelong consequences for these individuals. Is there no room for growth for these students? No opportunity for a second chance?

It is no secret that college students drink, on campus and off. The strict “no tolerance” policy of UNC is understandable, but its enforcement should be more forgiving and pragmatic. As student employees, RAs deserve more opportunity for development given the demands of a rather thankless job that they must fulfill while enduring the other stresses of college life. Given the way Carolina Housing Director Allan Blattner and Ehringhaus Community Director Gerson Lam handled the situation, they are probably lucky to not be held to such unforgiving standards.